RTÉ100 – Points of View: Anniversary show gets so much right, but falls down on the basics

This year marks a century of public broadcasting in Ireland, and RTÉ is honouring that anniversary with the watchable if tonally confused RTÉ100: Points of View (RTÉ One, Wednesday, 9.35pm).The feature-length documentary wants to be several things at once and ends up in a bit of a muddle. At one level it’s striving for a Reeling in the Years-esque hopscotch down the yellow brick road of shared cultural experience. So we get journalist Sinéad O’Carroll recalling Davy Fitzgerald and Clare’s 1995 All-Ireland win – their first since 1914 – and comedian Colm O’Regan remembering the life-changing thrill of going inside Bosco’s cardboard home and watching the iconic puppet having a private moment as he painted and sang to himself. But it also strives to be serious, sociopolitical television. And so Lindsey Earner-Byrne talks about how The Late Late Show became a sort of national wailing wall – a clearing-out for the traumas accumulated over decades of theocratic hegemony. Meanwhile, Irish Times columnist Fintan O’Toole observes how Joe Duffy’s Liveline served as a warning signal to the government during the 2008 financial crisis when people rang up to express fears for their savings. READ MOREMost interesting of all is the contribution of film-maker Jim Sheridan, who draws a contrast between the anarchic thrill of gangland classic Love/Hate and the more calculated high-jinks of its spiritual successor Kin, which he says has been tailored for international streamers – and that RTÉ is trying to appease the very forces plotting its destruction. [ RTÉ dominates airwaves despite Radio 1 rescheduling losses, figures showOpens in new window ]But there are occasional lapses. We are told that Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh was “the voice of the GAA” when that honour should surely be shared with his predecessor, Michael O’Hehir. Later, someone delivers this stunning insight: “What one person finds entertaining is completely different to what someone else finds entertaining.” Hey, easy with the truth bombs, RTÉ.It is also incredibly on-brand for RTÉ to make a documentary about 100 years of public broadcasting that at no point mentions the anniversary itself and leaves it to the viewer to work this out. The milestone is referred to in passing by a number of contributors – but the very fact that the predecessor of RTÉ began to broadcast in 1926 is never explicitly referenced. That’s a shame – as can be the case with RTÉ across its many decades, this film gets so much right but then lets itself down in the basics – such as telling the viewer what they are watching and why.